October 1, 2003 Neal Stephenson was at Book People in Austin, TX, where he signed copies of his latest book "Quicksilver", the first book in "The Baroque Cycle" trilogy, and answered audience's questions. Below is an approximate transcript of his talk. Due to the poor quality of the tape recording it was hard to pick out the exact words that were said, so I can't guarantee the accuracy of either audience's questions or Neal Stephenson's answers. The places I couldn't hear I paraphrased the best I could.

One of the most remarkable things about this interview is that Neal Stephenson introduced the audience to the word "steampunk" and had to assure them he didn't make it up. Who could have guessed that in a few years steampunk jewelry will be sold at Walmart!

Kage Baker was the oldest girl of seven kids; she started writing at age 9. Some of her earliest memories was changing diapers for smaller kids; when her biological clock started ticking, she decided "been there, done that" and never looked back, never felt like she missed out on anything by not having children.